Google's revenue was $11.34 billion in Q4 2012, not including Motorola Home's sales of $802 million. Analysts were expecting $12.4 billion for the quarter. But total revenues were $14.42 billion for the quarter, which was a 36 percent boost from Q4 2011.

But there was a bit of confusion as far as revenue goes. Google's treasurer said that analysts may not have adjusted their numbers to show that Motorola Home business, which Google sold for $2.35 billion in December, would be accounted for as a discontinued operation in the Q4 2012 earnings announced.

Google said its profit jumped 13 percent to $10.65 a share from the year-ago quarter of $9.50 a share.

Google's price per click, where advertisers pay Google each time someone clicks on an ad, rose 2 percent in Q4 2012 from Q3 2012. However, it was a 6 percent decrease from Q4 2011.

“We ended 2012 with a strong quarter,” said Google CEO Larry Page. “Revenues were up 36 percent year-on-year, and 8 percent quarter-on-quarter. And we hit $50 billion in revenues for the first time last year – not a bad achievement in just a decade and a half. In today’s multi-screen world we face tremendous opportunities as a technology company focused on user benefit. It’s an incredibly exciting time to be at Google.”

Investors were pleased with the Q4 2012 earnings, which droves shares up 4.9 percent in extended trading. The company closed at $702.87 in NASDAQ trading today.

“In today’s multi-screen world we face tremendous opportunities as a technology company focused on user benefit,” said Page. “It’s an incredibly exciting time to be at Google.”

quote: Google is like a battery company that gives away elctronic gadgets to gain revenue from selling more batteries. Google's profit model is simple... Advertising. Create products to push advertisements.

You are right. So what are the trends and patterns of that advertising in the mobile space? Here are a couple of observations.

Mobile advertising on any platform for any vendor is much lower per user compared to PC browsing and the world is moving to mobile and gently but persistently away from PCs. Android does not change this and is not the answer to the strategic issues that this trend poses fro Google.

Which is why Google cannot afford to abandon iOS and cannot use it's freebie offerings to differentiate and favour Android. So when Apple dropped Google from maps and discontinued the Apple YouTube app Google had to rush in with pretty good replacements. Google cannot afford to lose the mobile advertising income from iOS as it is so much more than their incoem from Android.